


These Heavy Hearts We Hold

by olivemartini



Series: the heavy hearts we hold together [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini





	These Heavy Hearts We Hold

_It's temporary,_ she reminds herself, looking away from the screen as she pulls the images up just so she doesn't have to look at them again.  She remembers this part, back when she used to work here and back before she finally quit, because the images seemed to last in her mind so much longer than everything else she saw her.  Beatrice isn't interested in anymore ghosts.  "Three so far,"  She says, and swallows hard before looking at them- young women, girls, really, all of them with bright eyes and beautiful smiles, right next to after images of their bloody and broken bodies.  Beatrice doesn't want to look, but she has to, because this is what she signed up for until Garcia comes back. Garcia, who she met on her very first day here and who met her in the hallway with a steaming cup of coffee, and met her for brunch twice a month even after she quit, and recommnded BEatrice for her replacement.  "Local police say there aren't any ties linking them together, other than the fact that they look alike and go to the same college."

It's not as good as Penelope would do, she knows, because Penelope would surely have some funny joke to ease the tension that always comes when you look at stories ended too soon and would have information to give them that wasn't completely obvious.  Beatrice steps away from the screen instead, reduced to being the girl who just clicks and points when the screen needs to show something different, letting Hotch take over the presentation.  She stares around at the team instead- Rossi, with a frown on his face, JJ, who was the first to greet her today, Morgan leaning back in the chair, and Spencer Reid, Garcia's boy wonder, resident genuis, who Beatrice knows prefers paper and pen over any technology.  

"Thank you for doing this,"  Hotch says, hesitating in the door way to grip her hand and give her an earnest, searching look that makes her think she knows just how awful it is for her to be back here.  He must have known about her- about her old team, about all the horrible things she used to look at and hear about, about the people she loved who died because they were always two steps behind the bad guys, and how she got bounced around from department to department after that until she eventually resigned.  Beatrice thinks it's unfair, because she doesn't know anything about him, other than by the reputation that proceeded him and his face passing at her in the hallways and that he's the type of man to hold the door for a girl even if he doesn't have to.  (Unless, of course, you count that one late night when she just started working when she helped him clean up the coffee he spilled because his hands were shaking, but Beatrice doesn't.)  "You came with the highest recommendation."

It makes her stand up straighter despite everything, because it's nice to be told that people think highly of you.  "Happy to be here, sir."

They both know it's a lie.

 

 

 

"You must be Beatrice."

The voice comes from behind her, and it startles her so bad that she almost dropped her lunch onto the keyboard.  Garcia would have her head for that.  When she calms down enough to turn around, she sees Spencer, standing sheepishly in the doorway.  He's not looking right at her, but off to the side, and his fingers are doing that  _tap, tap, tapping_ she had noticed back in the conference room.  It was a local case, which meant the team was still bouncing back and forth from headquarters to the crime scene.  "Bea, actually.  Like the insect."  The old team had called her by her full name, but that stopped around the time they broke up.  That change came around the time of so many other changes, like the new therapy sessions and hair cuts and the shaking in her fingers.  "And you're Spencer.  Garcia told me about you."

She stands and holds her hand out for him to take, but he takes a step back and raises his hands up in a sort of a protest.  "I don't shake hands, actually.  Germs, you know."

He rocks back and forth on his heels, looking more awkward embarrassed then Beatrice thought that it would be possibly for someone to look.  Beatrice shrugs and leans back against the desk, because of course he doesn't shake hands.  How silly of her.  "Totally."  It struck her that they were around the same age, him only a year or two older, both of them something of prodigies. Him, rising through the ranks and gathering doctorates, and her handpicked out of the her college class in the same way that Garcia was, because she stuck her nose somewhere it didn't technically belong and the FBI decided that she made a better asset than enemy.  Not that she had been bothering anyone, really.  "Can I help you with anything?"

"Actually, yeah."  He moves to take her seat, which is, yeah, not really okay with her, but then his hands are moving on a keyboard and pulling up this manifesto that she would have had no idea how to find and was pressing print before she could think to ask why he needed it.  He goes to leave, back to the room full of voices and his friends and leaving her in the dark with all of Garcia's little things she keeps to brighten up her room. It's a lonely place, back here.  But then he hesitates, squinting at her, and decides to stay, sitting down on the floor and pulling his lanky limbs into a tight pretzel, looking for all the world like he would never be able to straighten back up again.  "Mind if I stay in here?  I read faster when it's quiet."

It only took him around six minutes to read the whole thing anyways, but Beatrice liked the company while it lasted.

 

 

"That's him."  She says, staring at the man's face on her computer screen, wishing it was possible to turn pixels into flesh and stab her pen right through his psychotic looking eye ball.  Beatrice waits for a confirmation on the other end of the line, and then the call goes dead, leaving her to wait in the dark until they return with good news.

Or possibly bad news. 

But she likes good news better.

This is why she didn't want to come back.  Why she would rather stick with her stupid freelance typing and computer fixing than to come back to this world of security clearance badges and crime photos and more bad endings than good ones.  She had enough ghosts to haunt her around, all those boys and girls and men and women that just couldn't be saved, and all those bad guys that were only bad because someone else ruined them, and that crushing feeling that the wheel would keep turning no matter how many times they thought they had slowed it down.  It's enough to wear anyone down after a while, all this death and blood and darkness, not to mention the terror that comes when you're waiting in a dark room for prints to match or a new lead to turn up among records that aren't properly filed in the first place.  

She's had enough of waiting while her friends are going to point guns and people who tend to shoot back.

 

 

They did come back, all of them, even if JJ's hair has a streak of blood that no one was mentioning and Spencer has a bruise blooming under his eyes.

"How'd it go?"  She knows that she sounds too anxious, too much like the new girl, but she's bouncing at Spencer's side and waiting for him to tell her that everything turned out okay.  Beatrice had got it into her head that he's her best chance at finding a friend, and she hadn't been able to shake that.  He seems happy enough to talk to her, turning and telling her with a smile on her face that yes, everything turned out okay, that they got the girl back to her family with nothing more than a few broken bones.

A few broken bones.

Because in this world, three dead girls and one live one with a few broken bones and one very crazy guy who's getting locked up for life is counted as a win.

"Right."  She nods, feeling tired all of a sudden, and also sort of stupid, because he's already turning to talk to the rest of the team.  She waves a hand in a good bye and grabs her purse, ready to leave, and looks back long enough to count all of them, reassuring herself that six left, yes, but six came back.  

"Hey Beatrice?"  Spencer was the only one who didn't seem to get the memo that she wanted to be called Bea, or if he did, just decided that he didn't care.  Beatrice can't find herself caring at the moment, either, just turns abck way to fast and with too eager of a smile on her face.

"Yeah?"

"We're all going out for drinks."  He says, and the rest of the team smiles at her, welcoming.  She can feel the hope blooming in her stomach, the warmth, the attatchement to this whole new group of people that she might lose one day.  "Want to come?"

 


End file.
